


Name it After Us

by crickets



Series: Vinegar & Honey [3]
Category: Lost
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-25
Updated: 2007-09-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets





	Name it After Us

**01\. Late Apples (Halloween)**

They spend those next months in an old farmhouse out past Biglerville. The ad in the paper offers free rent and a stocked pantry to anyone skilled enough to fix up the place - stripping, painting, and wallpapering, light carpentry and repairs.

Two weeks in Gettysburg, and Sawyer's run out of excuses to stay, so Alex gives him one. "I can paint," she says, dropping the crumpled paper into his lap, the ad circled in pink highlighter, "and I'm good with a hammer."

"This'll take a while," he notes on that first day, the peeling paint and crooked shutters offering a grim realization. But when he looks at her, Alex's smile is bigger and brighter than he's ever seen it, and he finds himself hoping it might take even longer.

"We should name it," she says, taking the decaying porch steps two at a time.

"Not ours to name, Bambi," he smiles, shaking his head. "Besides, who names houses anyway?"

The leaves are falling and it's Halloween already by the time they set to work, but she still finds the time to steal late apples from a neighboring orchard and carve a couple pumpkins for the porch.

(There are no trick-or-treaters, but she lights the pumpkins anyway.)

Her room is adjacent to his, and it feels strange being alone after months on the road, their two doubles just feet away from each other. Some nights, when it's cold, he pretends to sleep and brings her extra blankets after she's drifted off.

_These old houses can be drafty_, he thinks.

And maybe he even believes that's the reason.

 

**02\. Thanksgiving (She still knows how to disappear.) **

Alex finds a path through the woods behind the house one Saturday and disappears for nearly twelve hours.

It goes on like this every Saturday after.

He never follows her or asks her where she's been, knows that in her own way she's only finding her way _home_. The moon is always high when she comes back, and sometimes she even leaves a stack of books on the counter for him to find in the morning. (_Seven miles to the local library_, he knows.)

Thanksgiving comes and passes without a mention of it from him. (He never much cared for it, anyway - too many bad memories.) They eat ramen noodles, watch some ridiculous horror flick, and she falls asleep on his shoulder before the credits roll.

_He lets her_, puts his arm around her, and carries her to her bed. He tries to ignore the way she sighs against him, her lips at his neck, but he finds himself hard and swollen at the thought of her while lying in his bed alone.

_Go away, go away,_ he thinks as his grips himself, comes into his hand with her voice in his head.

 

**03\. Streets of New York (Cold Christmas)**

It's Christmas Eve, and Alex wishes it would snow. Ben had this thing for Christmas carols, and somehow the memories of him hurt a little less when it's Bing Crosby's voice carrying them to her.

Sawyer disappears in the afternoon and comes back a while later with a tree. It's small and misshapen and she's almost sure he cut it from a field just south of the house. She's never had a real tree, not even one of those fake plastic ones, and she doesn't know how to thank him.

They decorate this sad little evergreen with a box of ornaments she finds in the attic. There are no lights.

Later, by the fire, arms pressed together, empty mugs of eggnog in their hands, Sawyer tells her about the time he spent Christmas on the streets of New York City. "I was younger than you," he says. "Fifteen."

Alex shivers. "Must have been cold out there."

He shrugs. "Oh, I don't know. I don't so much remember the cold. I remember Rockefeller Center, all those lights, and this taxi driver, Theo was his name, bought me hot soup and a pair of gloves. That's what I remember."

She kisses him then, and her mouth is warm and wet and Sawyer gives into it for just a second, his mug tumbling to the floor, his hands cupping her face. She moans, a low, suggestive moan, and he pushes her so hard she falls off the couch. She doesn't speak, her eyes clouded over, glued to the spot, as he tumbles away from the couch, barrels out the front door, the wheels of the truck spitting rocks when he tears down the driveway.

"Merry Christmas," she whispers, salty taste on her lips, and she suddenly she knows what he meant about New York.

It's warm by the fire, but all she feels is cold.

Outside, it's snowing.

 

**04\. Compromises (Resolutions) **

Sawyer hasn't talked since Christmas Eve, instead communicates in monosyllabic grunts and feeble, hapless, gestures.

She can barely look him in the eye.

It's New Year's Eve and the house is nearly finished, just a month or so more, and she finds herself working more slowly, sleeping in, waiting for him to forgive her. (Forgive himself?) Because after this, who's to say he won't just go on without her? For good this time.

She let Karl fuck her once.

(And that's really what it was).

They did it in Ben's bed, the last place he'd ever look. It hurt too much and went by quicker than she expected, but everything with Karl was always more about him than it was ever about her. He loved her. She hated Ben. It was a compromise.

(She found out on her own that it was supposed to feel good.)

So now she thinks of Sawyer, the television, loud below her room, with party-goers counting down from ten, filtering through the floorboards. She works her fingers between her legs, thumbing at her tiny bud, and comes to the sound of the new year.

Downstairs, Sawyer makes a resolution.

 

**05\. The Blizzard (Groundhog Day)**

Things are different now. He doesn't touch her anymore, doesn't bring her blankets at night, but they talk over breakfast about the house. How many more repairs? How many ways to waste time? (And she still hasn't painted the porch.)

They work slowly, and he talks about Jack. It's the only thing he misses, she's sure. (He never mentions Kate, but maybe that means more than she thinks.) She talks about school, tells him that Tom was her teacher, which explains why she was horrible at math and a whiz at history. (And she'll never know he was the one to pull the trigger.)

They say so much. (But never enough.)

The real snow starts on a Tuesday. A week later, it's February, and the governor's called a state of emergency. The news reports that Punxutawney Phil, along with the rest of the state, will be staying indoors until the storm lifts.

The power goes out in the night, and Alex finds herself tiptoeing into Sawyer's room. He breathes heavily in his sleep (she misses that) and she is sure she can see his breath on the air. She crawls into bed next to him, whispers his name.

"What?" he muffles, wrapping his long limbs around her.

"I'm freezing," she whispers into his ear, her lips grazing his cheek. His body tenses and his hands grip her back where they lay limply moments before. She closes her eyes, waits, and then she feels his lips on hers, soft and slow, deliberate, like he means it this time.

When he finally pulls back, she shivers from the loss of body heat. He slips from under the covers and gets to his feet, and she wants to remind him that he literally can't go anywhere this time, can't run away.

"Sawyer," she calls.

"We'll need more blankets," he says simply. "I'll start the fire."


End file.
